Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Let's have some heart-to-heart conversations with the Vikings

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Matthew Coller and former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles talk about what the Vikings need next on defense and then they play a game where they hypothetically sit down with Kirk Cousins, Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and what they'd say to each about their situation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here for a Tuesday morning left guard with former Minnesota Viking, Jeremiah Searles, and Searles on assignment at some bowl game or something that you're going to be traveling quite a bit as we go through this leading up to the Super Bowl. But how's it going, man? It's good, yeah. I'm in L.A. currently for the NFLPA Bowl. So I've been here since Sunday. I go to Vegas on Thursday. I'm there till Monday. Then I go to Alabama and I'm there till following

Friday. So I'm on the road. All-star game circuits. No representing clients, meeting with front offices, scouts, GMs, pro personnel guys, representing players. It's my season. It's my busy time of year. So this is year two of this whole machine that you're now part of? Correct, yep. This is my second year as a certified guy. We got our first class last year and worked on our second class this year.

That is very cool, man. Well, we will still make sure that we get the pods in through the Super Bowl. And I wish you the best of luck recruiting clients and doing what you do there. So let's talk a little bit of Vikings search slash defensive coordinator firing because we haven't spoken since. I guess I'm curious about your take on both. Now, for me, when it comes to trying to determine whether someone is a good candidate for defensive coordinator i think it's extremely tough you could go like well they play this kind of system there and maybe that's something you can

figure out but aside from that it's hard to know whether someone will be competent at their job but as far as the team moving on from ed donatatell looking for a new defensive coordinator uh your take other than saying like yeah obviously yeah you know I think all of us knew that that was coming at one point or another you know after the year that they had and uh you know you're right though trying to find a defense coordinator that you think will be the answer to all your prayers is not an easy thing to do in the NFL uh you know, because so much of like, for example, the 49ers guy, everyone loves him. Like, look at what a magician this guy is.

It's like, have you seen the players he's playing with? Like, you might be able to put Ed Donatel in that defense and be pretty good. You know, it's like it's so much of defense is about production from your players. You know, so a lot of that goes through draft capital and how you build your team. You know, so I think getting your defense coordinator who, again, is competent, has a proven track record of what he can do in the NFL, I think is really important. But it's

going to be more about who you bring in to plug into that system or who you retain, I guess, is another better question of what that defense is going to look like, not as much what scheme are we playing. So which side of the ball do you think has more control from a coordinator perspective of what ends up working or not working? Because I think that historically we have seen some defensive minds have very long runs of being good, and Mike Zimmer was one of those. I mean, if you go back with Mike Zimmer to Cincinnati, I think it was nine of 11 years from Cincinnati all the way through 2019 that his team was in the top 10 in points allowed. I mean, that's pretty darn hard to do.

And I think says something about him. But you could also go through those rosters and find a lot of very good players. And they got Daniel Hunter in the draft and Eric Hendricks and Everson Griffin was here, but he developed under Zimmer to be better. But then again, on the offensive side, I mean, we give offensive coordinators a lot of credit when their quarterbacks are good and when their quarterbacks are not good, they get fired. So, I mean, I guess I wonder which side, like if you think that hiring a new defensive coordinator, if they are more competent than Donatello has a chance to have

an impact or if it really is how they rebuild the roster? You know, I think that's a great question. You know, I think so much of the defensive coordinator position is about the blitz packages for me. You know, like what can they do to try and slow down the Mahomes and the Allens of the world and the Kirk Cousins even, right? Like how do we disrupt? That's the number one thing as a defense coordinator in my mind is like,

first of all, is your main scheme, like is it sound, right? And you look back and it's really easy to look at Zimmer's offense, defense. Like you knew what he needed. He needed a big nose guard that could disrupt Linville Joseph. He needed edge rushers that could get home so he could not have to blitz every play. And so that way he knew when he could blitz, it was going to be effective right so many times you and i spoke this year of like well what's going on with the defense like well should they blitz should they not blitz like we had no answer of just a base sound scheme that allowed us to be disruptive you know so if you have a base sound

scheme again that goes back to your players but i think so much more is based off of the different coverages and the different blitz package you can put in week to week to week for example the bangles last week had one of the best splits packages i've seen all year they had josh allen and that bill's offense on their heels from the word go you know so right rightfully so everyone's like what happened to josh was like no that was a defensive coordinator that is very very good and you know and more and more on the defensive side of the ball in the playoffs specifically, you see those coordinators become more and more important. You know, so I think that

you have to give defensive coordinators a lot more credit for shutting down quarterbacks when they do it versus a quarterback carving up, you know, because I think quarterbacks are easy to carve up the teams that like the Vikings,

where it's like they don't have a identity of what they do all the time, right? When you have an identity of we just line up in four and we can get pressure and then sit back and play coverage. And then the blitz packages are special. And those are how you're hitting home and forcing quarterbacks to throw where

they don't want to throw because they're trying to hurry it or they're guessing wrong on the pressure. And that's where the turnovers come. That's where I really give the D coordinators a lot of credit versus just saying like, Oh, they have great players. Yeah. I mean, I think that what we've seen recently is there's a lot of morphing where you had teams were running bootlegs and play actions and hitting on these deep shots. So then defenses were like, oh, I think that we should maybe play back and do the umbrella thing and force them to go underneath. That was kind of

the response to, you know, Patrick Mahomes and so forth, but not only that, but also the Shanahan, the Kubiak, the bootlegs and play actions. And then, so they started to kind of solve some of that with pressures and then teams now, okay, let's go to go to the short game, but the short game can be really interrupted by a lot of those pressures, especially when you have linebackers that show mug looks up at the front of

the, you know, where you see everybody lined up across the D line, and then you don't know who's coming. You don't know who's dropping back. And there were times in that San Francisco game where that happened and Dak Prescott made the wrong read. And a lot of times that's what ends up happening is the most confusion that you can give. And I remember even going back to 2018 where Belichick basically refused to

line anybody up down in the dirt against Kirk cousins. He had people just standing around and like daring them to run the football, which they refused to at the time with John D Filippo, but cousins didn't know where to go with the football because he didn't know where everyone was going to be. And I think that confusion is absolutely part of it. However, without good players, you really can't ask them to do too much. Fred Warner ran from the left hash all the way on a deep route, covering a wide receiver on the right hash in that game.

I mean, there's only a couple of linebackers who can do that. Seattle is a good example of this, where suddenly with their system, when they had Cam Chancellor up in the box all the time, he's gone, and then they're not the same anymore. Richard Sherman's gone, they're not the same anymore. So I think that what you could do with these players, or Xavier Rhodes playing on an island, which very few corners even do today, that allows you to be a wizard. But you kind of got nothing it's so much harder because you're basically just trying to plug holes instead of saying oh i can reach into my bag and call up all these different blitzes and coverages and things like that you're exactly right right

it's it's different when you're asking a d coordinator to try and stop the stop the bleeding right like when you're a defense coordinator that's just constantly in scramble mode of like, dude, how do we stop them from scoring versus like how do we create a negative play? You know, it's two completely different mindsets, but you're exactly right. You can't stop the bleeding when you have four different places it's bleeding from, right?

If you can identify one place, it's like this is the one area that we need to try and cover up with a blitz package or line an extra lineman up, right? Like think back to the Baltimore-Pittsburgh game. Pittsburgh was like, oh, Tyler Huntley, you can't throw the ball. 60 linemen, right? Like they just threw them up there.

You know, that's a scheme fit. You know, but going back a little bit to the Kirk Cousins and going back to the quick game thing, you know, what we're seeing with the quick game and one thing the Bills didn't do to Cincinnati, in my opinion, this last week is when you show pressure looks and when you show all those guys lined up or you show safety's rock and rolling, you can make a quarterback predetermine where he wants to go with the football pre-snap. He's like, oh, this is pressure

from my right, so I know my hot read over there. I'm going to get to that right away. Then all of a sudden, boom, they bail and that's where he holds on for an extra second and then the pressure gets there because you sent it from somewhere else. You know, those are the type of things that the Vikings just didn't do well this year. And those are the type of things that we need the Vikings to do well going forward. You know, and I think back to when Zimmer, too, like Harrison Smith, like you said about Fred Warner. Harry used to do that all the time. He'd be standing up there looking like it's free safety pressure.

He wouldn't have to snap the ball. He's at the opposite quarter of the field covering a go route. Those were the things that we were able to do with Harrison and even with Anthony Barr. You know, Anthony Barr is another long, rangy guy that would be in the A gap where all of a sudden he's covering the hurt curl or he's out in the flat making his tackle, you know.

So, again, it goes back to players. But overall, like who we go and who we search for, I just want a guy that's going to be able to come in here and bring good players with him. That's my number one defensive candidate is like, go bring good players with you that, you know, fit your scheme and you trust in your scheme.

And then from there, we can see what kind of creative genius and whiz person you can be on the board. But until we fix the main thing, which is our base defense, nothing else is going to matter. Right. Because I think that there were players this year

that weren't a scheme fit for Ed Donatel, and that's not his fault. I mean, he didn't put it together. He didn't have all those bust drafts on the defensive side of the ball that Rick Spielman had, but also he didn't meld what he was doing with what they had. It just seemed like this is what we're doing, and that's the story, and if you're not good at it, too you're playing it for 18 straight weeks i mean that that was but i also agree with you that like look uh so i like to play old video games right and if you play some of the old maddens

before it got super intricate i mean a lot of times you just played like cover two and you would take one of the players and you'd do something with them you maybe rush the passer because you don't care about defense you just want to get back on offense before they had that cool mode that allows you to do that now and your defense would just stand there and then stuff would happen that was their defense like they were just standing there and i think that the way that offenses work so much now and they kind of have for many years but like even more so is if you see this then you do that like if they show this coverage then it's it's middle of the field open and then you go here and if it's not and the idea that was presented to us from kevin o'connell was

we're going to show the same thing before the play every time and then we're going to change it so they won't know middle of the field open or middle of the field closed but it doesn't seem like there was anything else that was. Because I think they did do that a fair amount. But it wasn't like, oh my gosh, why did that linebacker end up there or something? Like the old Dick LeBeau thing of dropping back a defensive lineman in coverage to shut down throws over the middle because you never expect that guy to be there. I mean, there just wasn't any time where it looked different from this is how they lined

up. This is how they played. And by the end, everybody knew Detroit crushed them on the second time. Green Bay crushed them in the second time. And then, of course, the Giants did as well. And then the Giants went to Philadelphia and could not move the football because they're not actually a very good team. So, I mean, what is your opinion though? Because whoever they bring in, it has a lot of work to do on the roster and there's not

a lot to work with. What is your opinion on how to approach the defense? I mean, would it be to move on from Harrison Smith and Eric Hendricks and just kind of clear everything out and say, all right, new guy, you got two years. Like, let's get your players in. But it's not like you're going to get fired this year because you're not good because the cupboard is bare. Or should they go the opposite direction, which would be extend Daniil, bring back Zedaria Smith, who they can cut if they want to. And then we're going to look to free agency and we're going to fill this, this, this, and this. Like which approach would you take to the defense?

A lot of it depends on what approach the organization is taking towards next year. Like we talked about last year, last week, right? Are we blowing it all up and saying, Kirk, we're not extending you. We got one more year on your deal. Do your thing. We're out. Or, Hey, Kirk, we're trading you and we're going to have like some money, dead money money dead money but whatever like but if you take the approach of like you said let's take let's start with the approach of you know hey kirk you got one more year we're gonna try and build this defense around because the offense is besides the guard position like the offense looks pretty good right the offense looks pretty good let's see if we can plug some of these

holes in the dam through free agency, through this guy's scheme fit. Let's extend Daniil. Let's extend Zedarius. Keep the core guys intact, but bring pieces in. I think that's probably where you start. Now, if you flip to the other side and you say, we're shipping cousins off to the Jets or the Raiders,

and we're bringing this thing in, then blow it all up. Start it all over. Keep maybe Daniil. Probably let Zedarius walk. Maybe try and trade Harry. Try and get some capital out of those guys. And then go draft heavy on the defensive side of the ball and try and find guys that can compete right away and make impacts right away.

But again, the draft is always a roll of the dice. You just never know if you're going to get a guy that's going to just be an immediate impactor or a guy that's going to take a couple of years. And it's just such a defensive side of the ball is a little easier than offensive I think I think you can find guys on the defensive side that are more ready to play and have more of a role-playing position whether it's a pass rusher or a nickel corner a dime corner or a true outside backer you know one of those things versus offensively but I really think

it just depends which way Kwesi and KOC and ownership decide they're going to put their foot down starting very soon here of what the path for 2023, right? Yeah, 2023 looks like for the Minnesota Vikings, whether they still believe they're contenders or whether they really truly believe we got to kind of start from not the ground, but from like kind of below deck and work our way up. You want to play a game you go can you play games you're good i can play games let's play games okay here's the game uh i am going to try to convince you that they should rebuild it and you should try to convince or you will for the game try to whether you believe it or not does not matter you try to convince me that they should run it back and try to compete for the Super Bowl next year.

Why do you get the easy job? You get the easy job. We can switch if you want. No, no. I like it. I like a good job. Okay. All right.

All right. I don't really care which side. I just pick the side. So why don't you go first and you try to convince me that they should bring back cousins, just do the same thing that they usually do with reworking contracts, go to free agency, try to make some good signings. You know the deal. So go.

Yeah, I love that. All right, so here's why the Vikings can win the Super Bowl in 2023. Here's why we keep everyone together. Number one, and this is the age-old thing, the grass is not always greener on the other side. it's really easy to say yeah you know we can go find this mobile quarterback in the draft we can go find this thing and you end up with zach wilson right it's really easy to believe that especially and then you go back through okay we went up we found a number one tight end who's going to be one of the best tight ends in the nfl We have the best wide receiver in the NFL in Justin Jefferson, right?

We're probably going to lose Thielen. That's okay. We love him. Great guy, Minnesota guy. No, but we're probably going to move on from him. From the offensive line position, we have our two starting tackles that are going to be absolute studs. Dalvin Cook, Alexander Madison, horse apiece, right,

where we may be able to move on from one. But offensively, I feel like we're in a really good spot. So let's not try and reinvent the wheel reinvent the wheel and just stay with what we did on offense and just try and clean up and add more of a running game right and then i think we'll be a top five offense now you go to the defensive side of the ball we know what we have in some of these players yes they're getting old but they're wily vets man they're just some wily vets they can make plays let's get a scheme friendly that we build around our vets, right? The defense coordinator that we bring in wants to work on maybe a four down structure, get back to a four down structure, more of a single high, bringing

Harry down into the box, let Kendrick play out on his deal and let's let these guys that we paid, let's make them earn their money and play through their contract. And instead of just kicking them down the road, not extend them and make them play for a contract, right? Make these guys play their best football right now to try and either a get paid by us again or go and get paid by someone else in the league. All right. So we put everyone kind of on an even playing field out of like, you're playing for your job, right? You're playing for your job.

And then we have to hit defensive heavy in the draft, find ourselves with the elite pass rusher, find ourselves a big three technique that can disrupt in the game, in the game, either in free agency. I think you go for a three technique in free agency where you find a guy that's a compliment to dalvin thomason but a little more wiggle a little more pass rush ability and i think that if you really want to get nitty-gritty about it those are the pieces that we're missing from being a super bowl contender right offense we can do it we fix this we're on

defense we're not letting them score 30 or they're only scoring 21 or they're only scoring 17. I think we can win another 13 games next week, next year, then win the Super Bowl 2023. Folks, it is time once again for us to have a discussion about liquid death. Now, here's the thing. My wife has been one of those people for a really long time that has carried around a water bottle and it's metal and it's gross and she drops it on the ground all the time. And so I said, look, why don't we try some liquid death? You're a big water drinker.

Give it a shot. And she has fallen in love with not only me, but liquid death as well. And it looks like sometimes when she's driving around that she is drinking a tall boy beer while she's driving, but it is indeed liquid death water. And one of the reasons that she likes it is that it comes in aluminum cans. The name liquid death comes from bringing death to plastic and liquid death gives 10% of their profits to end plastic

bottles, which are not easily recyclable. And that's another part that my wife is enjoying about liquid death. And I am also drinking it as well especially the lime flavored sparkling water which is very good so make sure you give that a try go to hy-vee target wherever you get your groceries go to the water aisle look for the can that looks actually like a tall boy beer and if you want to learn more about where to find it go to liquiddeath.com it, go to liquiddeath.com slash insider. That's liquiddeath.com slash insider. All right. I think you did well. I think additions to your case would be that you could probably even improve at that receiver spot.

I know you mentioned moving on from Thielen, but out of the players who had similar target shares, there were 41 players that had similar target shares as Thielen. And by PFF grade, he was 38th out of those 40 players. So if you're talking about drafting someone, bringing someone in, there's probably an improvement there. Or if he stays on the team, you still do the same thing and you can maybe get better. You have maybe some advancement when it comes to the right guard uh you could bring in a new center who is more specialty that is a pass blocker because even though bradbury improved um still not really his thing and he got crushed by um lawrence in the playoffs and on the defensive side i think that the argument that you you didn't go for but was

there for you is that ed was really bad like really really really really super stupendously unbelievably shockingly bad and and that the draft class next year has way more potential to contribute a caleb evans uh andrew ruth jr and you can fill around that so you'd be making the case that you could get to an average defense just by getting rid of the bad man and having the draft come in and add a little bit so i think that's good and then you could also throw in there the culture element too like i believe in the culture so i'm just trying to help you make your argument a little bit uh and i think i think you overall you did a great job there uh from my perspective i blow it up blow it up blow it up blow it up i don't have to say as much because I could say, look, five years, one playoff win

since signing Kirk Cousins. He's not getting cheaper. He's only getting more expensive and he's not getting younger. He's only getting older. And I'm not convinced that there's any formula to do it. They had good defenses at one point and didn't get it done. And I don't know how things could possibly go more right than they did last year. I know the defense was bad. That was the only thing that went wrong. I mean, everything else, they were healthy. They had an easy schedule. They had a favorable number of home games on the schedule. They had way more home games than away games because of the neutral site game that they won in London. Next year, your first-place schedule is much harder.

And I'm not sure that even if you're bringing back, like, Kendricks and Harrison Smith, what we're supposed to count on from those guys at that point. Because most players that are at their age are, like, thinking about retirement, not leading defenses to be the best. There's very few linebackers you'll ever find, like, over 30 that not leading defenses to be the best. There's very few linebackers you'll ever find like over 30 that are still like superstar players. So the age is a problem. You probably won't get as much out of the Neil Hunter and Z'Darrius Smith. They were both top 10 in pressures. It's going to be hard to do again. The offense stayed completely healthy. I'm

not sure how that's going to happen again. So there's a lot of regression there already from a team that didn't even outscore its opponents. And again, five years of Kirk Cousins and their overall point differential for five years is outscoring opponents by about one point per game. So, I mean, of course, right? Like dead on in the middle, dead on average. And even with all those things you talked about, it's just hard to see it ever being better than it just was, which means it's time to make a shift. Trying the same thing over and over again, definition of insanity and all that sort of stuff.

And it's just that all teams get to the end of their journey at some point and then they have to say all right it's a new direction for us uh and i think that even if you're the wilfs be like do you enjoy living in a simulation where yes the stadium is full but i guarantee you with this fan base they want this and they'll show up they came to a meaningless week 18 game last year in 2021. They didn't cheer, but they were there. You're going to sell your tickets. People are going to love your team. They're not going to give up on you.

They want to aim for a Superbowl. They don't want to aim for maybe we'll have everything go right. And maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe they want to look at the other teams who are outscoring their opponents by 150 and say, that is us. right and maybe maybe maybe maybe they want to look at the other teams who are outscoring their opponents by 150 and say that is us by the way 1998 do you know what the vikings point differential was in 1998 i do not i was seven years old just take just take a guess take a guess plus 120 plus 260 yikes what i mean that's the best that's the best vikings team of most people's lifetimes if you weren't born in like the 60s uh so there's a point there that's a super bowl contender you

were 260 points off of that uh i don't think that's being made up by bringing in a new dc and like another young linebacker who made the the better case? I think you made the better case because it's the right case, and I'm arguing a losing battle. I think the other low-hanging fruit for you there is money. It's cash. It's capital that we just aren't at the moment having. We don't have a ton of capital to be able to – and the only way we can do that is by blowing some things up.

And I could have made the case the other way of like, well, that's why we're not. I mean, if we just keep extending guys and kicking cans down the road, like that for me is more of the definition of insanity than anything. It's like, well, we're just going to keep keeping everyone together because we love this group and we love this core group of guys and like extend extend extend eventually like eventually the chickens like you got to pay it you got the chickens come home to roost man like that money is spent even if you front load a lot of it with the signing bonus up front like you're still extending that signing bonus over however many years right like so i think the

other piece of it is just money and just how much money you're willing to spend on these guys versus how much are you willing to risk you know it is a risk to let some of these guys walk. I mean, there's a chance some of these guys go and have great ends of their careers other places, a la Jared Allen. You know, like it's hard to let guys walk out the building that have been there for so long and contributed and done so much. But it is a business at the end of the day. And if you're going to go in a direction where you need to try and make the club some more money, that's what you got to do.

Okay, let's play another game. You ready? More games. More games. It's all games show. up some more money that's what you got to do okay let's play another game you ready more games more games it's all games show uh i'm gonna call this game pull up a seat at the bar all right so you we're pulling up a seat at the bar next to certain vikings people and i want you to start out by pulling up a seat at the bar next to a fellow player, Kirk Cousins. If you and him were, let's say, in Indy and just hanging out, it's two in the morning, but the bars stay open all night there. They don't care if it's legal or not. And Kirk says, Big Jay, you're my guy. I heard your show. You're

great on that show. You're a smart player. What do you think I should do? What do you think I should do? I'm not a lame duck quarterback. I don't want to be a lame duck quarterback. Jay Searles, JS, what would you advise for me? Well, first, I'd order a little fashion and I know Kirk would get a water.

So if it's two in the morning, I'm probably four or five old fashions deep at this point. Kirk's just had to pee four times from all the water he's drank. But, you know, I think I asked Kirk asked Kirk like first thing I ask him is like Kirk how many more years do you want to play like how many more you like do you feel like you're going to be Tom Brady you want to play till you're 45 or are you looking at like I'm entering the final contract of my career like is that the mindset right like it's so much of what a player's mindset going into a contract is so much of what they want like if Kirk still feels like I've got seven eight years left in me

then stick with the Vikings man you know like that's what you want to do but if I'm Kirk and I say Kirk you're looking to win now right you're looking to win now like and you've seen what this offense is you've seen what you can do like I think I walk in and I ask everything Kirk you need to go ask KOC you need to go ask KOC. You need to go ask those guys, like, what is your plan for this organization? How are we rebuilding? Are we going all in? Like, what are we doing?

And if they say, no, we're going to add some pieces. We're going to rebuild this. Then I say, trade me. I say, trade me. Let me go somewhere that drops me into a 2018 Viking situation where they really feel like they have a built defense around. They've got young talent on the offense and they feel like they're a quarterback away from winning a Super Bowl. And I think that that's a fair thing to say from Kirk's perspective, based off the fact that you can't say that about the Vikings. You can't say that the Vikings are a quarterback away from winning the Super Bowl.

There's a lot of teams in the NFL right now that I really think you can't. You know, Jets come to mind. Raiders come to mind. You know, there's certain teams out there, Miami, if Tua's not hurt, like, right? I mean, there's plenty of teams out there that I feel are built enough that they have the hard part figured out. Now it's finding the right trigger man. You know, so I think if I pull up next to the bar, I say, if you want to play three four more years tell them to trade me put me in a situation get some draft capital out of it as a vikings team you know and let me go over do my thing with a team that's

already kind of pre-built because kirk cousin's not a rebuild quarterback he's not at that point of his career to be the the focal point of a rebuild of a team he's a win now quarterback you know he's at that point where he can be inputted and he's smart enough and he can deal it with the right guys. So I think I say, hey, Kirk, if that's what you want, walk in there and tell McCarthy, say, hey, trade me. You ever think about – you remember those rumors that Kyle Shanahan wanted Kirk Cousins?

You ever think about like if Kirk Cousins would have a Super Bowl ring or something had they made that happen, considering what a house that team is. I'm sure he thinks about it. But that's probably what you need, what we've seen from them with Jimmy Garoppolo and Brock Purdy. That's probably the caliber you need to win offensively and defensively. And I'm not even sure the 2018 or 19 Vikings were as good as what they have in San Francisco. Now, actually, I'm sure that they weren't as good.

They had more weaknesses, offensive line. The defense was starting to age a little bit. There were some issues like, you know, Everson Griffin and things like that that weren't the same as it was in 2017. Basically the 49ers have had a 2017 caliber Vikings over several seasons that he would have had chances to potentially win the Superbowl, but the jets come up as a potential type of team that, yeah, you can drop onto and they might have a few years and they can afford you.

They can pay you what you want to be paid. So there are potential opportunities out there for him. There are also examples of quarterbacks in their mid thirties who were franchise quarterbacks, and usually they're better than him, like Drew Brees or something, but who have stayed with the same team and sort of seen it through, got their paycheck, seen it through, got to the other side and then were rewarded. But it's usually not a one-year process. It was three years with Brees. I think it was two or three with philip rivers in san diego slash los angeles where they just weren't good and then they came out the other side and had a chance or two at the end of his career but it requires a

lot of patience and probably a lot of criticism too because you know that they're going to say if the team next year goes seven and ten because they're rebuilding uh. It was fluky the one time you ever won and you're not good enough to be better than 500 and all those things. Like, I don't know if he wants those arrows anymore. I think maybe after getting a taste of winning and how much everyone liked him when he won that he might say like, look, you know, if we're, if you don't have a plan to be great next year and do this again, that you can show me with your hands, then I might want to be moved. I think that's a really interesting perspective. Who would you like me to pull up a seat next to at the bar and drink my Diet Cokes?

Let's not criticize the guy at 2 a.m. who's drinking Diet Cokes and running to the bathroom every two minutes. I would love for you to pull up a seat next to the bar next to Adam Thielen. Okay. Okay. Well, I guess I would say this. Oh man. I mean, there's something I want to say, but like, because you have to understand I have the, I have the utmost respect. Absolutely. I love him and have covered him for a long time. And, you know, was, was one of the first to write the did you know he went to mankato in 2016 when he started to emerge so i have a great respect for him i would say that maybe he should um ask people in his circle to be careful about what they say on

social media because everyone will blow up everything you say i i would say that that uh even if even if people are emotional like they have to be careful with what they say on social media, because everyone will blow up everything you say. I would say that, that even if, even if people are emotional, like they have to be careful with what they put out there. But aside from that, I would say, you know, Adam, it's been wonderful. And did you know you're from here? Detroit, what a story. I would say like, it's, it's probably time to see if you can hit your wagon to some team that needs one more guy, because here's what often happens. Christian Kirk is a good example of this where when someone's too expensive and you have a rookie quarterback contract, that does not matter. And those players, a lot of times like they benefit from that. Oh, rookie quarterback contract. So if you look that, and I don't know if Jacksonville needs more receivers, like probably not, but maybe, um, you look at a

Jacksonville or you look at other teams that have drafted quarterbacks recently, and maybe are ready to take a step forward. I hate to say the bears, cause that would make everyone sad. It'd be like an Alan page thing or something, but, uh, but you know, you look at the bears and you're like, well, they're going to have a gazillion dollars. And you know you look at the bears and you're like well they're gonna have a gazillion dollars and you know i don't think chase claypool's all that good they made a mistake there like maybe you should just ask the organization to move on from you make a trade somewhere where you might be somebody's top receiver or number two receiver and not have to live necessarily in the final year or two of your career behind Justin Jefferson

and also have a chance to win, that I think that's probably just a better outcome for you. Because here, it's Jefferson's show. No matter who's here, it's Jefferson's show. And when you look at the outlook of this team, if we're just doing percentage chances that you ever get over the hump, after two times getting 13 wins and not making it happen, the odds that you get 13 next year, the odds that you even win the division with Detroit and maybe Rodgers comes back, it's not great.

This is why we see worst to first teams all the time because it's hard to repeat it twice in a row unless you have Mahomes. So maybe you should just ask the team to trade you to another team that really needs a receiver, has a young quarterback, and gives you that last chance to potentially go deep into the playoffs. That's what I would probably advise Adam Thielen rather than saying, why don't you take another pay cut, another restructure, sort of be irritated by that, feel like the team doesn't really believe

in you anymore and they've moved on to a prettier girl or something like just just call it a great minnesota viking career and i would put him probably in the top i think top five viking receivers ever that's a that's a pretty good run as a viking receiver now maybe go try to chase your ring i agree with you I was worried you were going to be like the dog now. It's like, you want to go to the farm? You want to go out to the farm and down to pasture? Like, no, he's not ready to retire. And I don't think he's ready to retire either. You know, I think Felix has a lot of good football left in him. I just, as a fear for me is I would hate for him to leave the Vikings on a sour note because of all the things that you just

said, all the great things he's accomplished said all the great things he's accomplished all the things he's done for the state with his foundation with all of that like you know i would hate for it to be an ugly breakup you know like i think of i think of like the texans and jj watt right the texans are like listen we suck we're bad jj you've done so much for us we're gonna let you we're gonna basically just release you, right? Like they just basically like, you can do whatever you want. Like, I don't think the Vikings will do that,

but I think the respect of an organization has for Thielen and the love that Thielen has for the organization, I'm sure they can come together and find a way that's like, like you said, listen, we're not gonna just be like, no, you're our guy and Jefferson, you're number two. Like it just doesn't work that way, but let's find a way that this can work beneficially for both of us. And you can still get what you want out of it. All right. I want you to pull up your chair next to Kevin

O'Connell. Hey buddy, you okay? You doing all right? Like the first one, you just kind of do the back rub, like, Hey man, things, things doing okay okay um you know but first of all i congratulate i'd say hey man great great first year like phenomenal first year i thought that you had a lot of big coaching moments from off the field stuff to on the field stuff that you handled brilliantly as a first year head coach which are not easy um i think you did a nice job of teaching your team how to handle winning right that's a really hard thing to do in the NFL is to handle winning, right? Everyone wants to be like, well, how'd you, how'd you do after you lost? Well, how do you handle success? You know, how do you keep guys focused?

How do you keep guys grinding at the end of the year when you were in the playoffs with six games left in the season or whatever it was, you know, like, so I think he did a phenomenal job at that. You know, and then the second thing I think I'm going to ask would be like, so what's the plan? What is the plan for moving forward in 2023? Like how in your mind does this work? Does it work from rebuild? Does it work from you think you're close?

And then I'd want answers. I'd be grilling him more than advising him. I'd be like, hey, like, why do you think this? What do you think? Because I'd be so curious to hear him say why he feels they were close or why he feels they're far away, right? Because we don't see everything that happens in that building on a daily basis. We don't see the conversations that are had behind closed doors of coaches coming in.

They're scratching their head going, how do we fix this? Or if there's coaches in there going like, well, we're just we're this close away. We're that away. We're this way. You know, and the NFL really is the difference between very little tiny things. So I'd be grilling him more on the lines of, hey, how are you going to fix this? Or what did you like about this? Or how do you feel about this player? And as I was leaving and we're finishing our drinks

and I'm picking up the bar tab, I'm going to be like, hey, I have a center few to draft. And then I just slowly walk out. If only they had a second round pick, which is where your guy is projected to go. I know, I know. Hey, trades, man. Just take a break out of Spielman's book and start trading around.

Well, they do love their trade back out of positions where you get potential star players, but that's a different discussion. I think what I would say to him would just be it doesn't have to be a long rebuild it doesn't it doesn't mean that you're you have to lose all the games and get fired to take a longer approach it's gonna hurt a little but you should really pick your guy your quarterback make him yours believe in that and and go with it that i guess that would be what i would say also the next time a defensive coordinator fails it's also on you you have to learn this it's also it's not just on ed it's also on you when you wear hc mike zimmer got destroyed for the run first stuff he got destroyed for the coordinators who left here unhappy and that's

going to happen to you too so you have to understand that you're not just the offensive guy and it's someone else's problem. So, and I'm not saying he didn't do this, but if you go down the hall and you say, we need to make some serious changes and your defensive coordinator says, no, I think our scheme is working. Then you need to fire that man. And that's just how it works. Like sometimes, you don't go full Zimmer because then everyone ends up not liking you. But sometimes you got to go a little Zimmer. You just have to be a little bit, it's a tough man's game. You got to be a little ruthless

because otherwise you'll just get fired. And so, you know, we've seen guys like Pat Shermer or Les Frazier who were kind of on the nicer side and maybe just didn't have that like harshness. And O'Connell really only had that situation where he had to be that way with anyone. And I think if he would to go back, maybe he would say maybe by like week 10, just make that change and have somebody else come in and try to run the defense to the end of the year. So I would say that like, be prepared to be a little bit more ruthless and don't be afraid of having a season where things maybe have to step back and go forward long-term.

And also don't be afraid to see a quarterback. You like pick them and go because like Andy Reed. And of course I would tell this story to the ends of the earth too. If I also had this take, which I did about Patrick Mahomes and I retweet myself every once in a while, but like Andy Reid said he was like on Patrick Mahomes for a couple of years. That was his guy. That was who he wanted. Go get your guy. Go get your guy. How about this for, oh, well that was kind of me telling O'Connor, like we're sitting on either side of him at that point. One more from me. Go get your guy. How about this for – oh, well, that was kind of me telling O'Connor.

Like we're sitting on either side of him at that point. For sure. One more from me. Who do you want me to sit next to? Yeah, one more for you. You pulled up next to the bar with Patrick Peterson. Oh, Patrick Peterson. I would say – I have to say, man, like of all the players I've been around that were veterans, Terrence Newman and Patrick Peterson are very similar.

The only guys where I've just been kind of in awe of their intelligence, where, I mean, there's a lot of smart players, but their ability to communicate it to other people as well. And then Peterson with his ability physically, that was beyond probably what Terrence was at his age. But I just, I would say first, you are the most deserving gold jacket person that i've been around my gosh the way that he played this year the way that he carries himself

all those things you're like this is what a hall of famer should be and it might be the only one i ever cover i mean there's only what a couple 250 guys in the hall of fame i mean you never know right so i would say uh just a jefferson Jefferson might, but we're a long way from that. Like there have been other receivers who have five-year runs and then they have injuries or whatever. Odell, Odell Beckham. Yeah, right. You would have never convinced me that he wouldn't make the Hall of Fame.

Herman Moore back in the day for us olds, he dominated the league for like three, four years, and then that was kind of it. But I would say, hey, you are the definition of gold jacket, totally deserving, but Philadelphia did call you last year and you picked come back here. And I'd love to cover you for another year. Cause I can learn a lot from you about football, but I would say it's probably time to go, to go chase one more championship real quick though, real quick. Cause I know you gotta, I know you gotta run. I think that one's probably time to go chase one more championship. Real quick, though, real quick, because I know you've got to run. I think that one's pretty easy, right? Like, don't come back here.

Go chase a championship. I want to hear just, like, one minute of you to Kweisi Adafomensa. Draft O-Lineman. Draft O-Lineman, dude. Draft him. I think that – and don't be afraid to draft them high. I think you see the final four teams. Look at the final four teams and tell me what the strength of all four of those teams are.

They're their fronts, both sides of the ball, offensive and defensive sides of the ball. And if you want to say and you want to tell Kevin O'Connell, hey, go get your guy, protect him. Protect your guy, right? Protect your guy, draft alignment, find an alignment that you love and draft him high. And then my second thing I'm going to tell him is like, hey, man, at the end of the day, kind of like you said for head ball club, for KOC, like this is your team. You make final say on the players that are on your team.

So if you like a guy, keep him and buy in and go all in and tell everyone why you kept him and what you believe. If you don't like a guy, I was talking with the general manager this week for one of the Canadian clubs, and he said, when I got in there, my first regret when I was there my first year is I didn't cut more guys. You know, like he was like, we were in a rebuild and I should have cut more guys.

You know, and so it's like, you know, if you have what your vision is, don't be afraid to like, like you said, go see, put your foot down and execute it because at the end of the day, you will be judged by the players that are on your team. You'll be judged by the players that you bring in. You'll be judged by the players that you develop. So like, if you have a plan, don't waver, don't waver from the plan, stick to the plan from the word go.

And then also my last thing that I would tell him is stop kicking the can down the road and let's get back to dead even on our salary cap before we start trying to figure anything out. You know, like let's not just keep playing this game of we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. We'll figure out from the salary cap side. And let's find a way to get this team back to net zero of salary cap, which I mean, I know that's not incredibly like entirely impossible, but like you just have to find a way to not be so far in dead money

that we can really look to see what your vision is. And you can't use that as an excuse anymore. Right. You're never going to be able to execute your vision if you're always playing with a short deck. I would say this just one sentence to Kweisi. You know what the numbers are. Make it happen. You know what they say.

You know what they say. Make it happen. So this was super fun. I love games. We're bringing back games now that we don't have games to, like, break down. So last thing, who's going to the Super Bowl? I think Cincinnati beats a one-legged Patrick Mahomes, unfortunately. I think watching what Cincinnati's blitz package that they did to Buffalo,

I think Mahomes being immobile, they're going to be able to get after him. And I think that they're going to be able to beat Kansas City. Now, with the Bengals' offensive line, they balled. They played their balls off with three backup offensive linemen. Can they do it again against Chris Jones and Dee Ford? That's – I mean, there was no one on that Bills defensive line that really scares you, right? Like, that's like, oh, wow.

You know, but there's two of them. There's two of them on Kansas City that are ballplayers. And if I'm them, I'm lining them up over the right tackle and the right guard, right, the two backups, right? Keep them away from the left side that's playing well. But, you know, I think that Kansas City and then I think that the Eagles, just based off of the domination on both sides of the ball, they have the best offensive line in all of NFL. They have Jalen Hertz back who's just thrown great balls all over the place.

And I just think that maybe Brock Purdy's youngness might catch up with him if they get into a scoring competition. You know, because I think this could be a little bit higher scoring than people think just because both these offenses are really good. And I think if I'm going to lean on someone to make a mistake and turn a ball over, it's going to be Brock Purdy over Jalen Hurts. I agree with that on Philadelphia. I will pick against Patrick Mahomes when he's 47. I'm going to go –

He's got one late. Dude, he got diagnosed with a high ankle sprain. What are you talking about? I'm still going with it. I'm still going with KC. I think the home teams win. So have your statement of regret again for me next week. All right, I will.

Great stuff, Jeremiah. As always, glad we could get together. Have fun on the road in your many locations that you'll be traveling to in this bowl season for prospects. And take care, buddy. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Absolutely. See you next week.